Re: Improvement of man pages of TAR

[Martin Simmons]

>>>>> On Mon, 14 Feb 2022 19:36:22 -0800, Paul Eggert said:
> 
> On 2/13/22 08:11, Antonio Diaz Diaz wrote:
> > Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> >> Man page: tar.1
> >> Issue:    archive --> archive itself
> >>
> >> "%s: file is the archive; not dumped"
> > 
> > FWIW, as a non-native English reader but somewhat experienced tar user, 
> > I prefer the current message to the change proposed. I think it is 
> > already clear what "the archive" means.
> 
> Also, I'm not seeing how adding "itself" would lessen confusion much in 
> situations like this:
> 
> $ tar -cf foo.tar a b c foo.tar d e f g
> tar: foo.tar: file is the archive; not dumped
> 
> Perhaps a rewrite of the diagnostic instead? Something like this?
> 
> $ tar -cf foo.tar a b c foo.tar d e f g
> tar: foo.tar: archive cannot contain itself; not dumped

Or put the action earlier in the message?

$ tar -cf foo.tar a b c foo.tar d e f g
tar: file foo.tar not dumped because it is the archive itself

$ tar -cf foo.tar a b c foo.tar d e f g
tar: not dumping file foo.tar because it is the archive itself

__Martin